READING THE BIBLE WISELY

Written by Richard Briggs Reviewed By David Jackman

This book sets out to answer a raft of relevant and pressing questions about our reading of Scripture. Moving beyond the obvious answers to the questions ‘why’ and ‘how’, Richard Briggs’ emphasis is on the ‘wisely’ of his title, offering us principles and examples by which we can cultivate a responsible understanding of the Biblical text in a morass of frequently contradictory interpretations. The first half deals with ‘the process of thinking about and evaluating biblical interpretation’ by examining specific passages as examples of the issues raised, rather than by abstract theorising. The second is devoted to the theological task of constructing a doctrine of Scripture (‘what sort of book the Bible is’), based on the earlier hermeneutical foundation. In this way, the author hopes to bridge the gap between ‘biblical studies’ and ‘theology’, holding the two together through an integrated approach.

In the hermeneutical section of the book, a number of different contexts are examined, each through a detailed application of a particular passage in Luke. Successive chapters deal with reading the Bible as Christian Scripture, as history and as a literary work. The second section on theological reflection considers the themes of the difficulty and clarity of Scripture (through issues in Romans), the inspiration and canon of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16) and the authority and application of Scripture. A final chapter explores the book of Revelation, under the title ‘Unveiled eyes and unveiled text’, while the postscript relates the task with which the book has been grappling to the pursuit of Biblical ‘wisdom’. The wise reading of the Bible enables us ultimately ‘to see the world as God wants us to see it’.

There are several helpful insights in the worked examples from Luke, underscoring the necessity for our understanding of Jesus to give us access to Scripture and vice-versa, the two processes forming a ‘mutually informing’ circle of understanding. Historical knowledge and awareness of the original context provide salutary challenges to an over-conditioned contemporaneity in our interpretation. But in the end the writer concludes that we can never be sure that we are not imposing our own patterns on the text (48), only that ‘the questions we have been pursuing are at least put to us by the text’.

This raises my main problem with the book’s approach. Early on, we are told that theological significance will elude us:

as long as we see the goal of biblical interpretation as the extraction of the one right meaning from the text. Biblical interpretation is more subtle than that (18).

This note develops with increasing insistence as the book proceeds. Of course, it is right to warn us not to read the struggles of the Reformation back into Romans, as an interpretative grid (57). Of course, we need to be reminded that we do not find ‘religion’ in the Bible, but the revelation of God reaching down in Christ, to rescue humanity (91), not ‘a great programme for moral living’. But to state that 2 Timothy 3:16 ‘actually opposes the idea that biblical inspiration could apply to the original manuscripts’, because Timothy learned the Septuagint, is arguably a ‘subtlety’ too far. It leads intentionally to a ‘kind of looseness’ in our doctrine of Scripture which places the onus of interpretative wisdom not on the understanding of the original authorial meaning, but on the church’s recognition of ‘the ongoing voice of God today’, which is ‘a wide-ranging and endlessly flexible task’. The danger is that the locus of authority has shifted and the ‘subtlety’ of approach may effectively deprive the ordinary Christian of the Bible, by making it the exclusive preserve of the ‘wise’ expert.


David Jackman

Proclamation Trust, London